Re: Photography Studies College
2003-02-12 by Wayne J. Cosshall
Hey Bobbo, Yup, grain can be very useful. Sometimes not. You make many valid points here. BW is effectively an abstraction, a formal removing of some aspects of an image to allow others, often tonality, to be more fully explored. It is the case that when too many features are present in an image we get swamped. Abstraction in this context is the removal of one or more elements so we can draw the focus onto others. Noise adds detail, and also, since we are subconsciously aware that real¹ photographs have grain, it confirms the photographic nature of what we are seeing. Interestingly, one of the standard techniques in 3D rendering, where a scene is mathematically calculated and an image rendered by software, is to add noise after in post production in Photoshop, so that it looks less plasticy¹ and more real¹. People are interesting :) Cheers, Wayne -- Wayne J. Cosshall Director and Publisher, Digital ImageMaker International magazine and web site, www.dimagemaker.com Technical Editor, Desktop magazine Director, 2003 International Digital Art Awards, www.internationaldigitalart.com Personal art website www.artinyourface.com 26 Kathleen Street, Preston East VIC 3072, Australia wayne@... Phone (03) 9470 3786, Fax (03) 9470 4384 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]